DRAMA FREE THURSDAY: Defriending

He’s not done one of those for about six months now, and so I dropped to my pixelated knee and asked him if he’d mind if I started to post a few of my own. He graciously gave me permission to do so. (Yay!)

Please note, though, that this is MY interpretation of DFT. I’m the only one responsible for anything posted over here under the DFT header.

I’ve been actively online since 1986, on all sorts of platforms. And yet I continue to fail at noticing when someone severs an electronic connection with me unless it’s pointed out to me, or until I realize that hey, I can’t see that person’s account anymore. Which must mean…

…Oh. Oh.

It’s not that I don’t care.

It’s that I frequently have the attention span of a gnat.

This past weekend, someone sent me an email to say s/he was defriending me on one of my social media pages. It was, hands-down, one of the kindest, gentlest, sweetest ‘I can’t be your friend anymore because of another friendship’ messages I’ve ever received.

And I admit that, just for a moment, the Dramamonster poked his head into the room and asked if he could have this dance.

I’m proud to say I replied, “No, I’m gonna sit this one out.”

“You sure?” He pulled out a bouquet of ZOMG SOMEONE HATES ME!! flowers.

I wavered. “No. No, I think I’m good. Thanks.” I turned back to my computer, wrote a heartfelt “I wish you well” message, and hit ‘send.’

Sure, there’s a seed of drama in this defriending. A year or two ago, that’s all I would have been able to focus on, and I’d have that hate-bouquet on my desk, poisoning the air.

But this is a good person, trying to do the right thing.

We connect with people in our physical world, or in our electronic life, for fill-in-the-blank reason. Sometimes we drift apart, for as many reasons as there are colours on this planet. I still think we do ourselves a disservice by calling it ‘defriending’ because I think usually it’s not a matter of dislike. I don’t think everyone that’s ever ‘defriended’ me hates me. I know I rarely ever ‘defriend’ because of a negative impulse. Sometimes it’s lost me a real-life friendship, which is a shame. But it’s a choice.

You can choose to see it as drama.

Or you can choose to see it as something else. Maybe your interests don’t match up anymore. Maybe you don’t interact enough to encourage that electronic connection. Maybe it’s an issue of privacy. Maybe you post too dang much and that person doesn’t have time to read or look at every single one of your cat pictures. 🙂

“Drama Free Thursday” is the brainchild of Popfiend – visit here for all of his yeah-you-should-read-’em posts.

The goal of DRAMA FREE THURSDAY is pretty simple: These are posts that offer a different approach to stressful situations. Drama happens when we react without thinking, when we respond emotionally to a situation.

So! The first rule of DFT is – say it with me – “Your Mileage May Vary.” What works for me may not work for you. And that’s ok.

Second rule of DFT: YMMV. 🙂

Third rule of DFT: Discussion good. Drama? Not so good. Let’s try to avoid it in the comments. Tell me you don’t agree, tell me what the world looks like from your perspective, because I can guarantee you’re gonna have something to say that I hadn’t considered. This blogger’s soapbox is only an inch or so high…so please, share your thoughts and perspectives on whatever is posted here. (That rule goes for my blog in general, of course, but it makes sense to repeat it here.)